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Month: October 2004

I may not agree with President Bush’s politics but how can I argue his choice of pet. Barney is the Bush family Scottish Terrier and has his own page on the Whitehouse website. The Whitehouse staff clearly enjoy having him around as the majority of the photos of Barney are taken by them.

Now my preferred means of exercise is running as all it requires a decent pair of shoes and a willingness to get out there and go, go go. I’ve flirted with the idea of yoga but was turned off by all the metaphysical bullshit associated with it. And besides, to me a workout is something that when you’re finished you’re a sweaty disgusting mess that no one wants to be around. That’s why I’m heavy on the cardio. With that, there could be certain things that could coerce me to alter my workout regimen like the Better Sex Through Yoga program. I mean, really, who can argue with that. All doubts will be dispelled after watching the video.

Dir En Grey are easily one of the more popular bands in Japan right now. That still doesn’t change the fact that they fucking suck. They really, really, really, really do.
The interesting thing about Japanese popular culture is the strange mish-mash of different Western influences that they appropriate and create the circus-mirror version they call their own. Now on one hand the results can be really interesting because they aren’t slaves to context as we are, but on the other hand you get total garbage like Dir En Grey which has somehow taken all my least favourite things about music to create something utterly and completely awful. Maybe it’s the emotive-yet-crappy Asian ballad vocals. Maybe it’s the tepid half-baked music that it somewhere between the heaviness of Marilyn Manson, the plodding suicide drone of Staind, with a good heaping scoop of shitty J-Rock. Mostly I’m annoyed at anyone who takes their angst too seriously. Here’s an excerpt from their website:

Formed in 1997, with the sole purpose to spread the feeling of hurt and sorrow caused by weakness, shallowness and egoism of humanity. When they first formed, their expressions of pain came from struggling and writhe, hiding inside the feelings of hurt and suffering. But as time passed, their pain became a cry also a message. Now, Dir en grey has changed its target from Japan to the World.

In complete contrast to the Yarmulkebra is the Jen Magazine website created by the LDS kids in SLC. One of the tenets that Jen Magazine advocates is that of modest clothing which they handle in quite a nice manner unlike the shapeless garbage on this site. There’s a huge difference between being modest and wearing a burlap sack and calling it an outfit. Thankfully they know the distinction between fashionable and slutty. After all what would the prophet Joseph Smith think of that bare midriff.

You know it’s a slow news day at Flashcube.org headquarters when this is the best I can come up with. I’m no theologian so I can’t really tell you if it’s blasphemous or not (I’m leaning towards yes) but I think the general consensus is that these are fucking hot regardless of their religious insensitivity.

IQ Biometrix has an interesting piece of software called Faces which they market to police departments in order to create composite sketches of suspects (and album covers). I downloaded a demo version to try out for myself. The demo version is fully functional but is limited in the variety of features at your disposal. Still, it amused me enough to write this. You can download the demo here. It is Windows only and while I don’t own a PC I was able to use it perfectly fine using other means.

This is the last generation. This is the end times. Brother R. G. Stair will tell the truth with a capital T as he broadcasts his show 24-hours a day every single day until the end of time. A large part of Brother Stair’s broadcast is about how the end is coming PDQ and how most of us are pretty much fucked when it’s here. So while I haven’t subscribed to any one religion but generally being a fanboy of most I implore you to listen to him. Best way to listen: in the background while your doing something else. His rants are very hypnotic. His sermons are even better. My recommendations are “The Goat and Ram” and “Thunders of Revelation parts 1-6”. Not everyone’s a fan of his though.